


And Though I'm Not a Great Romancer (I Know What I'm Bound to Answer)

by CitrusVanille



Category: McFly
Genre: Drunkenness, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Sappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-04
Updated: 2008-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-02 05:17:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11502543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CitrusVanille/pseuds/CitrusVanille
Summary: The sound of someone attacking his front door drags Tom roughly from a rather pleasant dream involving a beach, moonlight, and - other things he can't remember two seconds after waking...





	And Though I'm Not a Great Romancer (I Know What I'm Bound to Answer)

The sound of someone attacking his front door drags Tom roughly from a rather pleasant dream involving a beach, moonlight, and – other things he can’t even remember two seconds after waking. When the sound of explosions doesn’t vanish with the rest of the dream, Tom groans and hauls himself out of bed, stumbling out into the hall and down the stairs, hitting the wall in the vague direction of the light switch as he passes, and, not surprisingly, missing, but he knows his house well enough that he keeps going.

He hits at the switch at the bottom of the stairs, and this time makes contact. He flinches as the light floods the hallway and squints, jerking the door open before his eyes have fully adjusted. He’s almost hit in the nose for his pains.

Dougie is standing on his doorstep, one fist raised to keep pounding on the door. He’s looking rather disheveled and reeks of alcohol. He’s also swaying very slightly.

“What the fuck do you want?” Tom demands, only it comes out as just a grunted “The fuck?” instead.

Dougie blinks at him, and giggles. “You’ve got crazy bedhead, Tommy,” he says, and reaches out to ruffle Tom’s hair.

Tom swats half-heartedly at Dougie’s hand and tries not to groan at the nickname. “’S the middle of the night. The fuck are you doing here?”

“It’s not even two!” Dougie protests. “We’re not all old women, Tom-Tommy. Some of us like to live a little.”

This time Tom does groan. “Can’t you live a little somewhere else? Like in a bar? Or your own home?”

“Nope,” Dougie replies cheerfully, leaning against the doorjamb. “No fun to bar-hop alone, and Harry has to meet his mum for brunch, so we couldn’t stay out too late – he drove.”

“Danny?” Tom asks. He’s feeling more awake, and he’s really not happy about it. He’d gone to bed early for a reason.

“Dan pulled. No way was I staying in the same building as them, so Harry dumped me here.”

“Don’t you have a key?” Tom already knows the answer to this. They all have keys to his place – Dougie probably has about five of them floating around.

“More fun this way, Tommy-Tom,” Dougie grins at him, and reaches out to poke him in the nose. His finger ends up prodding Tom’s cheekbone, and Tom feels lucky it wasn’t his eye. Dougie giggles. “Oops.”

Tom sighs in defeat. It really is too late – or is that early? – to be dealing with this. “Get in, then,” he says, stepping back out of the way, then in again quickly to catch Dougie when he trips over the threshold.

Dougie giggles again, breath warm and damp against Tom’s neck. “Thanks, Tommy,” he says, and nuzzles the skin under Tom’s ear.

Tom tries to ignore the sensation. It’s not easy. But he really is exhausted, and Dougie is clearly very drunk. “Let’s get you to the couch,” he mutters into Dougie’s hair and half-carries him towards the living room, kicking the front door closed with his toes.

“I don’t wanna sleep on the couch,” Dougie protests, pulling away just enough that he’s standing on his own feet rather than letting Tom support him. He keeps his arms draped around Tom’s shoulders, though, and one of his hands has slipped inside the collar of Tom’s tee-shirt.

“You’re drunk,” Tom tells him, attempting to pry Dougie’s hands off his person now that Dougie isn’t leaning on him. He’s not having much success.

“Don’t make _you_ sleep on the couch when you’re drunk.” Dougie’s other hand has wound itself into Tom’s hair – a cut, or at least a trim, is probably in order, Tom thinks, automatically filing it away in his ‘to do’ list – and Tom kind of wants to lean into the touch, but that would most likely be counterproductive.

“I don’t wake you up in the middle of the night when I’m drunk,” Tom retorts, but even he can tell it lacks bite.

“You’re making me sleep on the couch ‘cause you’re mad I woke you up?” Dougie starts giggling again. “You really are an old woman.”

Tom grits his teeth. He will not – _will not_ – be drawn into an argument at fuck all in the morning with a completely sloshed opponent. There’s no winning against drunks, and Tom really, really just wants to go back to bed. “You should be happy I let you in at all,” he says, and is proud of himself for keeping it to that.

Dougie rolls his eyes and tugs a bit on Tom’s hair. “Stop being such a girl. I’m not going to molest you or anything. You’ll get your beauty rest. I just want to cuddle.”

Tom wonders if he should point out the irony of this, but figures Dougie is too far gone to understand it, anyway.

“C’mon, Tommy,” Dougie prods, blinking up at Tom in a way that makes him look like he’s fifteen again – it’s kind of disturbing, actually.

“That’s really disturbing,” Tom tells him, and resumes his attempt to herd Dougie towards the living room couch.

Dougie doesn’t budge, just tightens his fingers in Tom’s hair. “You don’t like sleeping alone, either.”

Tom frowns down at him. “That’s not the point.”

“Then what _is_ the point?” Dougie wants to know.

“The point is, you’re drunk,” Tom reminds him, though he’s starting to wonder just how drunk Dougie really is. Despite his earlier stumble, he’s managing rather well on his own two feet, and he’s not really slurring his words, either.

“Not _that_ drunk,” Dougie insists. “‘S not like I’m gonna puke on your pillows.”

“I’m not worried you’re going to –” Tom starts, but Dougie cuts him off.

“Yes you are.” He fixes Tom with a rather drunkenly stern look. “You are fooling no one, Thomas Fletcher. I’ve always known you loved your pillows more than me, and this is proof.”

“It’s not about the pillows,” Tom says, though it kind of is. Besides the fact that he’s tired and feeling cranky at being woken up, he’d just changed his sheets, and he would really rather the first thing Dougie does in them not be regurgitating his evening’s consumptions.

“So you just don’t want to sleep with me,” Dougie says in a ‘just clarifying’ kind of tone that prompts warning bells in Tom’s head.

“Were you drinking _gin_?” he asks, but he already knows the answer, and is starting to wish he’d been paying enough attention from the moment he opened the door to notice the warning signs. Dougie never drinks enough gin to actually get shattered – which means there’s no danger of regurgitation, thankfully – but if he drinks enough of it to get drunk, he tends to get – not clingy, exactly, but very insecure – once he gets over the giggling that usually lasts about as long as the buzz. No wonder Harry had dropped him off at Tom’s.

“There were _martinis_ ,” Dougie explains. “And they were _dirty_.”

“I thought you didn’t like olives.”

“I don’t,” Dougie agrees amiably.

“Then why would you drink dirty martinis?”

“Danny bet me I wouldn’t drink them,” Dougie says, “and after the first couple the taste didn’t bother me so much.”

“Right,” says Tom. “And what, exactly, did you win?”

Dougie blinks. “Danny bought me another martini.”

Tom would cover his face with his hands if they weren’t occupied with being wrapped around Dougie’s waist. He’s not entirely sure how they got there, but he’s willing to settle for an eye roll rather than move them. “Of course he did.”

Dougie tucks his head, nose first, into the crook of Tom’s neck. “Are you angry?” he wants to know, voice surprisingly soft, lips warm against Tom’s skin.

Tom suppresses a sigh. “No, no. Not angry.” He presses a kiss against Dougie’s hair then pulls away slightly. “Can you make it up the stairs on your own?” he asks, hoping he doesn’t sound too resigned.

“Um. Yeah?” Dougie’s chin digs into Tom’s shoulder a bit as he contemplates the stairs behind him. “I think so?”

“Right,” says Tom, and disentangles himself. “Go on up and get in bed, then. I’ll be right up.”

Dougie opens his mouth like he’s about to protest, but then thinks the better of it, nods, and heads up to the first floor, clutching the rail as he goes.

Tom lets out the sigh this time, and heads for his kitchen to get a glass of water before heading back to his bedroom himself, glass in hand, making a pit stop at the toilet to hunt down a couple aspirin.

Dougie is already curled up under the duvet when Tom gets there, the downy comforter pulled up to his chin, eyes closed.

Tom can feel his lips curve into a soft smile, and he shakes his head. Dougie has never really managed to grow out of being completely adorable, and Tom kind of loves that about him. He sets the water and aspirin down on the bedside table and crawls into his bed, curving his body to fit behind Dougie’s, wrapping one arm around his waist and nuzzling into his hair.

“Night, Dougs,” he murmurs, soft enough not to wake him, and presses a kiss to the back of his neck.

Dougie snuggles back closer, twining his fingers with Tom’s where they cover his hip. “Tom?” he asks, voice low, but not exactly sleepy.

“Hm?” Tom’s already starting to feel warm and relaxed again, already drifting back into sleep.

“I’m sorry,” Dougie says, and that drags Tom back from the edge of sleep.

“What for?” Dougie’s not really the apologizing type, even drunk, and Tom can’t help the flutter of nerves in the pit of his stomach.

“For this,” Dougie whispers. “Waking you up, and being drunk, and making you take care of me.”

Tom feels the tension drain away in relief. “It’s fine,” he assures him. And it is. He’s not even upset about being woken up, anymore. Not really.

“But I –” Dougie tries, and Tom shushes him.

“We can go for breakfast or lunch tomorrow, and you can treat, if you’re still feeling guilty,” Tom tells him. “Let’s just sleep, now, okay?”

“Yeah,” Dougie says, barely audible. “Okay.”

Tom has almost fallen asleep when Dougie speaks again, voice still quiet, but with that intense insecurity Tom knows the gin brings out. “Do you still love me, Tom?”

Tom rolls his eyes, but, “Yes, Doug, of course I do.” He manages to keep the eye roll out of his voice.

“Say it?” Dougie sounds like he’s trying not to plead, but can’t quite manage.

Tom blinks, not entirely sure where this is coming from – even with gin Dougie isn’t usually like this. “I love you, Dougie,” he says, and hopes Dougie can hear how much he means it, because he does. He really does. Craziness, drunken shenanigans, two o’clock wake ups, and all.

Dougie wiggles backwards, pressing even closer against Tom’s chest, and makes a noise that might be a sigh, might just be ‘mmm.’ “Love you, too, Tom,” he murmurs, and within moments, his breath has evened out in sleep.

Tom smiles and tightens his arms around Dougie’s waist. “I know,” he whispers, even though he knows Dougie can’t hear him. “I’m glad.” He sighs and lets his eyes slide closed as he finally drifts off to sleep.

**END**


End file.
